ENTERPRISE ZONE: 'Collaboration helped us connect with supermarkets': How partnering with larger firms offers small businesses route to market

While businesses will always compete against each other, some firms – big and small – are taking an increasingly collaborative approach.

Gerber Juice is one of Britain’s biggest drinks firms, making products for brands such as Innocent, Sunny Delight and Um Bongo. The company, which has a turnover of £330 million, makes 650 million litres a year at its factory in Bridgwater, Somerset.

In 2010, five years after building the factory, Gerber decided to use its expertise and facilities to provide services to smaller firms, such as helping with logistics, production and sales, enabling many to build relationships with supermarket chains.

Help: Jonathan Bailey's The Potted Fish Company has been able to expand thanks to its collaboration with Gerber

One firm that has used Gerber’s services to expand is The Potted Fish Company in Newton Abbot, Devon.

The business was launched by Jonathan Bailey three years ago at the age of 22. Since contacting Gerber two years ago, his firm has gone from a ‘kitchen table’ business to being stocked by numerous retailers including Sainsbury’s and Ocado.

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He says: ‘The supermarkets send the orders and Gerber manages these for us, including taking the products from us twice a week to the supermarket depots. All payments also go through it.’

Jonathan, who has just won a ‘significant’ contract to export to Switzerland, says: ‘This means we can concentrate on developing the business to the next stage.

‘Another benefit is that as a young firm capital is tight. By using Gerber we haven’t had to invest in systems infrastructure and can process bigger orders.’

Gerber is helping 12 small businesses, including a clotted cream producer, and has seen turnover from its third-party logistics business double year-on-year. Alan Armstead, general manager at Gerber, says: ‘More and more customers are looking for consolidation and partnering as a means to save money and reduce their carbon footprint.